Columbus

Under the original Columbus program, a free-flying man-tended laboratory, based on the Freedom Space Station attached module, would have been flown with a major emphasis on microgravity research. Launched in the late 1990's by the Ariane 5 booster, the 18 metric ton laboratory was to be serviced by Hermes spaceplane crews once or twice each year.

However, a redirection of the Columbus and Hermes programs in 1992 abandoned the free flyer concept. Instead, emphasis will be placed on conducting materials science tasks on the International Space Station. Meanwhile, five material science experiments were performed during the Euromir 94 mission on the Mir space station in October, 1994 (Section 3.8).